Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

The library has access to a really interesting, unique and incredibly useful online resource. It goes by the curious acronym of PEP, but its actual title is more illuminating - Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing. Well, maybe a bit more illuminating.

This online treasure holds a unique resource, something you might think would be easily found online, but that in fact only is found in PEP: the complete works, in English (The Standard Edition of J. Strachley) AND German (Gesammelte Werke) of Sigmund Freud. Fully searchable, so you can find, for example, exactly where Freud discusses the famous dream of the white wolves.

But there's much more to this online archive. Also included, and also fully searchable, are nearly 50 journals and the full text of 70 classic books on psychoanalysis. So you can also set the white wolves in context, and see how this famous case has been discussed over the years.

But wait, isn't psychoanalysis a somewhat outdated field? Haven't Freud's writings and theories been largely discredited? After all, there was something called the Freud Wars a while back, wasn't there? It's true that Freud's theories have come under fire, and that many discount his work as pseudo-science. But in the humanities, he is still a seminal figure and psychoanalysis is still actively studied. In particular, Freud's writings on dreams, the unconscious, and the comic are frequently cited and studied.